Hello everyone, I have been having some problems with the front suspension on my 04 fx4 (new body) and wanted to get some much needed advice.What could the problem be? How to get it fixed? What else I should replace/upgrade while I have the truck at the shop?

I think the problem is my ball joints on the passenger side, because when I push on the top or bottom of the wheel you can feel some play coming from somewhere in the suspension. The truck has no noticeable change in handling or control, but does make a sort of clunking noise (like somethings loose) from the front end passenger side when driving on logging roads or rough and rocky dirt/gravel roads.

I was told by a friend on the weekend that this could be the ball joints so I plan to take it in to a front end shop to have them replaced. I also want to make any other upgrades or repairs that would make sense at the same time. I have been toying with the idea of new shocks for a few months now so I can raise the front end and level the truck so I think I may do that at the same time. I was looking at the Rancho quick lift system to replace shocks and coils.

Mt truck is a 2004 fx4 with the new body style, it has roughly 95,000kms on it and all of the suspension in the front end is stock. I just want to get rid of this awful noise coming from the front passenger side, but also if I am going to have to get an alignment I figure I may as well make some other upgrades while they have the front end apart.

Any and all advice would be much appreciated as to what I should replace, what I should upgrade, and what I should just leave alone. I use this truck as my daily driver and also for road trips and shuttling mountain bikers up and down mountains (on dirt roads) on weekends.

Thanks for your time reading my post, and thanks for the feedback it is much appreciated as I dont have much experience with automotive repairs or diagnostics.

 

I had a noise coming from my front end and thought it was ball joints as every F-150 I know has needed ball joints around this time... Mine ended up being fine but the lower bushing of the strut completely blew apart. But it was time for new struts anyways so just swapped them out.

 

I experience the same issues as you OP....In my case I was almost sure it was the shocks. Replaced all of them with the Bilstein 5100 Level shocks and ditched my spacers that I had leveled with previously. It helped a bit but I still haven't figured out whats wrong. All the bushings appear to be in good shape, I thought bad ball joints make more of "popping" noise when they go bad? Might be mistaken though....

Please post back if you decide to replace the your ball joints and it does indeed fix your problem!